DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a mosque in the Gaza Strip early Sunday killed at least 19 people, Palestinian officials said, as Israel intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza and southern Lebanon in a widening war with Iran-allied militant groups across the region.
Israel is still battling Hamas a year after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack. It has opened a new front in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has traded fire with Israel along the border since the war in Gaza began. Israel has vowed to strike Iran itself after Tehran launched a ballistic missile attack last week.
The widening conflict risks further drawing in the United States, which has provided military support to Israel. Iran-allied militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have joined in with long-distance strikes on Israel.
A stabbing and shooting attack at the central bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba left one person dead and 10 wounded, according to first responders. Police said the woman killed was a border police officer.
Israel is on high alert ahead of memorial events for the Oct. 7 attack, while rallies continue around the world marking the anniversary.
The Israeli strike hit a mosque where displaced people sheltered near the main hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah. Another four were killed in a strike on a school-turned-shelter near the town. The Israeli military said both strikes targeted militants.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that those killed at the mosque were all men.
The Israeli military announced a new air and ground offensive in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, home to a refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israel has carried out several large operations there during the past year, only to see militants regroup.
The military said three soldiers were severely wounded in Sunday’s fighting in northern Gaza.
Israel reiterated its call, from the early weeks of the war, for the complete evacuation of northern Gaza. Up to 300,000 people are estimated to have remained in the heavily destroyed north while around a million fled to the south.
“We are in a new phase of the war,” the military said in leaflets dropped over the area. “These areas are considered dangerous combat zones.” A later statement said three projectiles were identified crossing from northern Gaza into Israeli territory, with no injuries reported.
Israel’s military says it has expanded the so-called humanitarian zone in southern Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people have sought refuge in sprawling tent camps there with little food or water. Israel has carried out strikes in the zone against what it says are militants hiding among civilians.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters, but says a little over half were women and children.
In Beirut, airstrikes lit up the skyline and explosions echoed across the southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh, overnight as Israel struck what it said were Hezbollah militant sites.
It was the heaviest bombardment since Sept. 23, when Israel escalated its air campaign.
